Stepping Up To The Plate

Nation's Business, Oct, 1998 by Carla Goodman

Carla Goodman 28 a free-lance writer in Sacramento, Calif.

Start with natural cooking talent, add a popular restaurant and a television cooking show, mix in a few cookbooks, and sprinkle with weekly cooking classes, and you have professional chef Caprial Pence's winning recipe for a business that grosses $500,000 a year.

Pence and her husband, John Pence own Caprial's Bistro and Wine, a cozy restaurant in an unpretentious neighborhood in Portland, Ore. Caprial Pence, 35, was only 6 when she began watching Julia Child on television, and by age 10 she was cooking family dinners. In high school she put together a four-course French dinner for her French language class. "I like the instant gratification of seeing someone enjoy eating what you've prepared," she says.

After high school, Pence worked at a Portland delicatessen. A year later, she was admitted to the renowned Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., where she met her future husband, who is also a chef. The school's challenging curriculum--designed to weed out the uncertain and the unskilled--fed Pence's determination to succeed.

"Graduation from the institute doesn't mean you're going to be the best chef, but it puts you at a level others aren't," says Pence, who graduated 12th in her class of 72. "I learned professionalism, discipline, and the ability to work under pressure."

After a summer job at a restaurant on the Washington coast, Pence was hired to be a cook at Fullers, a Sheraton Hotel restaurant in Seattle. Three years later, in 1987, she was promoted to chef, with a staff of 15. "It was a hard year taking on all that responsibility," says Pence. "It meant setting up the menu and kitchen the way that I wanted and teaching others how to cook and think about food as I did."

Pence exercised her new authority by scrapping Fullers' regular produce supplier in favor of buying fresh produce from local farmers.

"Organic gardening was exploding then in Seattle, and I wanted to use a lot of locally grown ingredients and fresh seasonal produce," says Pence, who raised a few executive eyebrows when she did business with mushroom pickers at Fullers' back door.

In addition, she replaced Fullers' nouvelle cuisine--a French cooking style--with Asian influences. The result: a zesty "Pacific Rim" cuisine featuring fresh fish and exotic flavors.

Pence's creativity at a restaurant already well-regarded by food critics attracted international attention. She was invited to cook for Russian diplomats in Moscow and for the sultan of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. And the New York City-based James Beard Foundation named her Best Chef in the Northwest in 1991.

"The award is the equivalent of the Oscars," says the foundation's president, Leonard Pickell. "Caprial was selected by her peers for her outstanding commitment to quality in the culinary world, She won by a landslide."

The media attention, travel, and long hours at Fullers took their toll. In search of a quieter lifestyle, the Pences moved to Portland in 1992, where they opened Caprial's under the aegis of their company, Northwest Cuisine.

Soon, Pence was on the road again. At Julia Child's request, she went to Boston to join 10 other accomplished chefs in cooking Child's 80th-birthday dinner, a fund-raising event with 650 guests.

Pence has continued to travel around the country-appearing at a fund-raiser for a public-broadcasting station in Philadelphia, for instance, and taping a food segment for the Discovery Channel in Bethesda, Md. She's also completing her fifth book, Caprial's Soups a Sandwiches, due from Ten Speed Press before Christmas, and she's planning the second season of her "Cooking With Caprial" television show, carried by public stations in 150 cities.

"I manage the restaurant and make sure it's functioning," says John Pence. "Caprial is the focal point. People want to meet her, taste the food, see the restaurant. We work well together. We have since our mid-20s."

The Pences are doubling the size of Caprial's Bistro and Wine. The extra space will accommodate a full bar and lounge; a big, open kitchen next to the bar; and a separate space, with its own kitchen, for Caprial's cooking classes. "It's great being one-on-one with my customers," she says. 'That's what I like best."